Sean Markey explains why these domains sold for what they did.
A tad late this month, but I’ve got a list of what sold at NameJet and SnapNames for the month of May 2023. I’ll share what the name sold for, why it sold for that much (breaking down the SEO value), and anything else of note.
For your info: in the article below, DR stands for Domain Rating, which is a logarithmic score of SEO authority from the tool Ahrefs, and RD stands for referring domains, meaning that’s how many domains are linking to the site.
Here we go:
ICRA .org – $10,249
DR 80, 5,702 RD
A super powerful domain for an SEO with the right skill set. This used to be the home of the Internet Content Rating Association. It has super valuable backlinks from sites like Mozilla, W3, NYTimes, ICANN, IETF, Wired, ALA, and much more.
One way to get a sense of the value of a domain like this is to divide the price by the number of referring domains. In this case, you can see that whoever bought this basically paid $1.80 per link. Sure there are a lot of worthless links, but I can tell you from experience that building 5,700 links where some of those sites linking include absolutely authoritative, trustworthy sites like Mozilla and W3–those campaigns will cost WAY more than $10,000.
For contrast, a DR 75 site ended its auction this week at GoDaddy for $75,000 (though it is important to note: the brand was borderline premium, while this brand is much less valuable as a random 4-letter .org).
Fiata .com – $4,200
DR 75, 2,550 RD
This terrible domain name packs some real authority.
It used to be the International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations. It ranks for a few keywords, and has links from sites like Forbes, BI, Gov.br, and a bunch of niche (freight) relevant domains (which is REALLY valuable):
Though the domain doesn’t make a great brand, this may have been a steal given the high DR and the low price (pending further due diligence).
Giroptic .com – $4,050
DR 63, 1,061 RD
Used to be: a 360-degree camera.
A better brand than some of the others (potential TM issues, but I did not check). The worst thing about this name though, is the presence of SPAM in the anchor text:
While that’s not in itself a deal breaker when it comes to SEO, it does merit further research and due diligence. If a legitimate business was on the receiving end of some spammy links, that can be overcome. If the site was owned by a spammer for a bit and they built a very spammy website the negative case here is that it may no longer be trusted by Google’s algorithm (and thus, no longer rank even with a good build-out).
LambethPalaceLibrary .org – $6,003
DR 62, 3,951 RD
It’s hard to nail down what kind of metrics this site had when it was purchased, as it has since been built out as an Indonesian casino site, and had multiple redirects put in place to juice its backlinks:
(Those are most likely sites that had been purchased in the past for their backlinks, built out as casino sites, and when they stopped ranking for casino terms, been redirected to the next site. The ultimate fate of this site itself will probably be redirected to another casino site when Google kills its current casino rankings).
Teitter .com – $2,151
DR 59, 729 RD
Even though this looks like a fairly authoritative domain, the backlink profile is very weak–full of easy-to-build (and thus low-value) referring domains like ColourLovers .com and JimdoFree .com.
The price reflects this weaker domain. And while a DR 59 is not valueless, whoever builds on this domain will have a much tougher road than the person building on ICRA…
iSeek .org – $
DR 54, 2,112 RD
Used to be: a site in the careers space.
But–uh oh, there’s that spammy anchor text showing up again:
This one has a ton of job-relevant backlinks, making me think, unless the site was spammed to the nines, it is probably a solid pick-up and can be rehabbed. 3/10 on the domain itself as a brand.
Econostrum .info – $2,800
DR 49, 3,368 RD; ranking for 17,000 keywords
This is something you don’t see every day: a .info selling for a significant amount of money.
Some big-time links from sites like BioMedCentral.com, TheConversation, Washington.edu, TimesOfIsrael, and a bunch of .fr domains (good if you’re building out a site that needs some French-specific rankings).
A French site focused on economic things, this was an ABSOLUTE STEAL at $2,800 for both the +3,000 referring domains AND the 17,000 keywords that are already ranking.
MathAware .org – $3,811
DR 49, 1,325 RD
This is a solid buy: some really great links with some BIG niche-relevant referring domains. This site is a great example of how to start rebuilding something right away and how quickly you can see rankings come back–this is what all the value of an expired domain with authority is about:
That’s it for May’s names.
I’ll be back much sooner with the NameJet and SnapNames SEO domains for the month of June.
Any questions? Hit me in the comments, I’ll do my best to answer them!
Post link: NameJet and SnapNames May monthly report: SEO Edition
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